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This trip can be tailor made throughout the year to suit your requirements

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Responsible tourism

Responsible tourism: Slovenia holiday, tailor made

Environment

Slovenia is one of Europe's most stunning countries with a huge diversity of landscapes. Much of this trip concentrates on the natural environments to be found here, often existing in quite fragile states. When in the countryside we ensure that we stick to the tracks and don't wander off with the potential to damage plant life - particularly relevant in places around Lake Bohinj in the Julian Alps.

This trip includes a visit to Skocjan caves, a complex of vast limestone caverns which harbours rare plant and animal life; again here it is vitally important that we ensure travellers stick to the trails. This is a UNESCO listed site and the entrance fees that we include here are vital in ensuring that this incredible environment can be preserved for future generations.

We also include a stay on a farm as part of this trip; the farm here practices traditional low impact methods upon the environment without the use of unnecessary pesticides and fertilisers. Much of the food you will eat here is produced on the farm; not only tasting great but reducing food miles!

Community

The use of local tour leaders and guides is critical to our trips, as not only can they impart insights that a foreign guide will not have, but it ensures that the local communities that we visit gain from the presence of tourism. On another level we rarely include meals within our tours and actively encourage travellers to move away from the hotels and spend their money in local restaurants and shops.

This trip includes a number of visits to historic buildings and monuments, and the entrance fees that we include help to ensure that such valuable local heritage can be preserved, not just for the benefit of tourists but more importantly to the local communities to which they hold greater cultural relevance.

With Slovenia being a developed country, tourism perhaps has less of an impact upon local communities than it does in the developing world. However for all of the destinations that we operate in, we ensure that travellers receive detailed notes on appropriate behaviour, in order to minimise any negative impact that they might have on the places travelled through.

As mentioned above, we include a stay on a traditional farm within this itinerary, which helps the income from tourism trickle down to communities that traditionally would have been outside of the tourist industry. We include just one night in a farmstay as part of our sample itinerary but are able to arrange longer stays, in a number of different villages, should travellers be interested.

1 Reviews of Slovenia holiday, tailor made

4 out of 5 stars

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Reviewed on 26 Aug 2014 by Ian Williamson

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

White water rafting near Lake Bled; it took some persuasion from our excellent guide Adrijana, but we're really glad we followed her suggestion. Driving through the Julian Alps - lovely scenery. We also really appreciated Adrijana's enthusiasm, knowledge and friendliness; she really did try to make our visit special (and she succeeded!).

We also really enjoyed having Mojca as our Ljubljana guide, she did a great job.Our last-minute replacement guide for Maribor was friendly but did not seem very familiar with the area.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Very much enjoyed all of our trip. We did not find Maribor town particularly interesting except for the church and synagogue. However, Ptuj is very nice and Ptujska Gora church is well worth the extra little detour.

Also, the wine-tasting venue in Goriska Brda was not very good (we could not really understand the winery guide's English)... we suggest the tour operator try a different winery.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Re benefit to local people: our homestay, which we had very much looked forward to, was cancelled at the last moment with no reason given so we can't comment on that. We did enjoy our visit to a local cheese producer in the Alps and Adrijana took us to some very nice non-touristy local restaurants.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

Very enjoyable, but a few problems with the tour operator's service (cancellation of homestay; initially booking us into a triple room in the Znidar guest house near Lake Bohinj then, when we complained, transferring us to the two rooms in Hotel Jezero that we had requested (and paid for!). Changing our Maribor guide at the last moment.